THE IMPOSSIBLE
30th September, 1900.
...
Prince Ching has been here a number of days now—I have not even taken the trouble to note how many—but still nothing has been done. They say that half the Powers refuse to treat with him until things are better arranged, and that the Russians have already raised insuperable difficulties because they say the Japanese have the big Manchu in their pocket. Others argue that expeditions must really be launched against a number of cities in Northern China, where hideous atrocities have been committed, and where missionaries and converts were butchered in countless numbers during the Boxer reign. Until these expeditions have marched and had their revenge, there can be no treating. There must be more killing, more blood. That is what people say.
The fleeing Court has reached Taiyuanfu, it is reliably reported. This is three hundred miles away, but the Court does not yet feel safe; it is going farther west, straight on to Hsianfu, the capital of Shensi province, which is seven hundred miles away. That is a big gulf to bridge; yet if there is any advance of European corps in that direction, already Chinese say that the Empress will flee into the terribly distant Kansu province—perhaps to Langchou, which is another four hundred miles inland; perhaps even to Kanchau or Suchau, which are five hundred miles nearer Central Asia. These cities, lying at the very southwestern extremity of the Great Wall of China, look out over the vast steppes of Mongolia, where there are nothing but Mongols belonging to many hordes, who live in the saddle and drive their flocks of sheep and their herds of ponies in front of them, forever moving. It is nearly two thousand miles in all; no European armies could ever follow, not in five years. They would slowly melt away on that long, interminable road. With such a line of retreat open the Court is absolutely safe, and knows it. It can act as it pleases.
Prince Ching is so miserably poor, they say, and has so little of the things he most needs, that he has been forced to borrow looted sycee from corps commanders and to give orders on the Southern Treaty ports in payment. It is an extraordinary situation.
A number of little expeditions have already been pushed out forty, fifty and even sixty miles into the country, feeling for any remnants of the Chinese armies which may remain. I went with one of these faute-de mieux, as Peking has become so gloomy, and there is so little to do that it fills one with an immense nostalgia to remain and continually to contemplate the ruins and devastation, from which there can be no escape.
Never shall I regret that little expedition into the rude hills and mountains, where climbs in wonderful manner the Great Wall of China. It was divine. There was a sense of freedom and of openness which no one who has not been a prisoner in a siege can ever experience. In the morning sweet-throated cavalry trumpets sounded a réveillé, which floated over hill and dale so chastely and calmly that one wished they might never stop. How those notes floated and trembled in the air, as grey daylight was gently stealing up, and how good the brown earth smelt! I almost forget the other kind of trumpet—that cruel Chinese trumpet which only shrieks and roars.
Each day we rode farther and farther away, and higher and higher, beating the ground and examining the villages, from which whole populations had fled, to see that no enemy was secretly lurking. Travelling in this wise, and presently climbing ever higher and higher, we came at last to little mountain burgs, with great thick outer walls and tall watch-towers, where in olden days the marauders from the Mongolian plains were held in check until help could be summoned from the country below. It was a wonderful experience to travel along unaccustomed paths and to come on endless ruined bastions and ivy-clad gates, which closed every ingress from Mongolia. Once these defences must have been of enormous strength.
One night, after journeying for a long time, we camped in one of these little mountain burgs, taking full possession, so that there should be no treachery while it was dark. The night passed quietly, for even fifty miles beyond Peking the terror lies heavy on the land, and in the morning we wandered to the massive iron-clad gates and the tall watch-towers which stood sentinel on either side to see if there was anything to be had. How old these were, how very old! For, mounting the staircase leading to the towers, we found that, although the rude rooms beneath showed signs of having been recently occupied, the stone steps which led to the roof-chambers were covered with enormous cobwebs and great layers of dust, showing that nothing had been disturbed for very many years. That was as it should be. At the very top of one tower we discovered a locked door, and beating it in amid showers of dust, we penetrated a room such as a witch of mediaeval Europe would dearly have loved. Nothing but cobwebs, dust, flapping, grey-yellow paper and decay. It was immensely old.
And yet we found something. For there were some chests hidden away, and prizing these open, we discovered great books of yellow parchment, so old and so sodden that they fell to pieces as soon as one touched them. They were in some Mongol or Manchu script. They, too, were centuries old. But there was something else—a great discovery. Beneath the books we found helmets, inlaid with silver and gold and embellished with black velvet trappings studded with little iron knobs. There were also complete suits of chain armour. It seemed to us in that early morning that we were suddenly discovering the Middle Ages, perhaps even the Dark Ages. For these things were not even early Manchu; they were Mongol; Mogul—the war-dress of conquerors whose bodies had been rotting in the dust for five, six, seven, eight, or even nine centuries. These relics had lain there undisturbed for all this time because China has been merely tilling the fields and neglecting everything else. In a curious mood we donned these suits and went down below clad as the conquerors of old.
There were some Indian troopers waiting, and when they saw these things they exclaimed and muttered excitedly to one another, casting half-startled looks. These were the same trappings and war-dresses as in the days of the Great Moguls at Delhi. The very same. The conquerors who had swept across high Asia had worn such things, and every man from Northern India must have understood their meaning and message. As they looked the Indian troopers chattered and talked to one another in a growing excitement. It seemed as if we had suddenly dug up some links of the half-forgotten past which showed how the chain of armed men had been tightly bound by Genghis Khan and Batu Khan, and all the other great Khans, from the Great Wall of China all round Northern and Central Asia, until it had reached down over the Himalayas into India. It was very curious.
When we had finished this reconnaissance, which carried us in every direction under the shadow of the Great Wall, we turned bridle and made back towards Peking by another route. A day's march away from the capital, word was brought us that there were still numbers of disbanded soldiery and suspected Boxers hiding in the Nan-Hai-tsu—a great Imperial Hunting Park, which had fallen into decay during the present century. We would have to sweep this park, which was dozens of miles broad and quite wild, and scatter any bands we might find. So starting after midnight, we marched hard in the gloom for several hours with native guides leading us, and daylight found us under the encircling wall of the ancient hunting-ground. We halted there a bit and refreshed ourselves quickly, and then galloped in through a breach. There were miles upon miles of beautiful grass stretches, and we and our mounts were fairly pumped before we saw or heard anything. But towards midday we came on some tiny hills and a few low buildings, which seemed suspicious, and no sooner had we approached than a whole nest of men rushed out on us, firing and shouting as they ran. Some had only huge lances made of bamboo, fifteen feet and more long, and tipped with iron and with little red pennons fluttering; yet these were the most effective of all. Waving these lances violently, and holding them in such a manner that it was impossible to get near, these men scattered our charge before it got home and unhorsed a number of troopers. Then it became a general mélée, which ended in the killing or capture of a few of the enemy and the rapid escape of the remainder.
Very late in the evening we rode into Peking with our helmets and our coats of mail and our long lances as trophies. The capital seemed terribly listless and oppressed after the country beyond, and I was bitterly sorry that expedition had not lasted for weeks and months.